Lobby group lambasts new Fraud Bill

Parliamentary lobby group Eurim is urging companies to put pressure on their MPs, demanding they modify legislation giving social security investigators wide-ranging access to their customer databases.

The new Social Security Fraud Bill compels financial institutions, universities, internet service providers, utilities and telcos to provide the DSS with direct access to electronic records to combat benefit fraud costing £80 per person in the UK.

The Bill is awaiting its third reading, and could become law this parliamentary session.

But experts are concerned about the sweeping powers and lack of safeguards proposed.

"If you are one of these companies and you have an electronic records system, and it is practical to set up browser access to let the DSS into your system, you will have to do it. You will have to allow them to extract bulk data," warned Caspar Bowden, director of internet think tank, the Foundation for Information Policy Research.

Eurim is particularly concerned about 'spoofing', where DSS investigators are impersonated by criminals attempting to get information.

"This matter is of particular concern to some of our large corporate members, who have complained that authenticating warrants is especially difficult in the case of DSS inspectors," said Eurim secretary general, Philip Virgo.

"There will be a centralised team that will contact the companies and ensure a secure exchange of data. We are negotiating with the financial institutions over how to manage the data," said a DSS spokeswoman.

First published in Computing